Indy runner who 'crashed' Olympic trials is exactly who you think he is

Noah Droddy, the 10k runner raised in Irvington, who went viral after appearing in the live cast at Olympic Trials, talks about his experience at Hayward Field, Friday, July 8, 2016. (Jenna Watson/IndyStar)

Noah Droddy belonged there, but admits he didn't look like he did.

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Noah Droddy poses for a portrait on the trail he ran frequently in Irvington before he moved to Boulder, Colo.(Photo: Jenna Watson / IndyStar)Buy Photo

The red tennis shoes, his actual training shoes, stick out from beneath wrinkled, caramel-colored corduroy pants, the laces untied. Those wrinkles pale in comparison to the ones overtaking his short-sleeved, button up shirt with the tiny, polka-dotted pattern.

These are the clothes he crashed in last night in Indianapolis, after catching up with old friends drinking beer.

These are the clothes he has on the next morning inside an Irvington coffee shop he chose — an old garage that now houses intense brews, eclectic art and live jazz at night.

Noah Droddy stands there wispy thin, 6 feet tall, 130 pounds with his hands on his hips, smiling sheepishly. As he tucks that long dark hair behind his ears and subtly touches his mustache, it all becomes clear.

This 25-year-old guy didn't crash the 10,000-meter Olympic trials — as social media went crazy saying he did. The mustache and long hair and the sunglasses and the hat weren't some charade to draw attention. This is really who Droddy is.

Noah Droddy runs in the Men's 10000 Meter Final during the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on July 1, 2016 in Eugene, Ore.(Photo: Getty Images)

Laid back, into music, beer and good coffee. Says "like" and "you know" a lot. Appreciates art and reading and has a witty banter of intelligence.

Droddy is a throwback 1960s hippie — a modern-day hipster.

"I don't like that word. Me and my hipster friends go nuts trying to figure out what that actually means," Droddy says. "I don't like the label. Does it apply? I guess by most people's definition of a hipster, again whatever that means, yeah, I guess I fit into that."

So, Droddy is a hipster who just happens to be unbelievably good at running. And he got caught on the NBC broadcast during the Olympic trials doing both.

And the world fell in love.

***

Droddy is in his parents' hotel room the night after the 10K trials in Eugene, Ore., earlier this month.

He takes us back to that night as he drinks a cup of drip coffee from Coal Yard in Irvington, not far from the house he grew up in as a vegetarian, an only child, who was reading really thick books by age 8.

"As a kid, he would develop a certain enthusiasm. When he was 7, 8, 9, he was really into the Civil War, into history, dressing up," said his mom, Sue Kennedy, the branch manager at the Irvington library. "We got him a Civil War uniform. He wore it around for a couple years. He collected Beanie Babies, had a zillion of those as a kid."

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Noah Droddy is the 10k runner from Olympics trials who went viral after appearing in the live cast looking somewhat out-of-place with long hair, sunglasses, a mustache and backward hat.(Photo: Jenna Watson / IndyStar)

The trials hadn't gone well for Droddy. He was disappointed. He finished in last place, a time of 31:02.99, three dreadful minutes behind the top runners. He had been lapped just after he hit the halfway mark.

Droddy was feeling down in that hotel room — until he plugged in his dead cellphone to charge.

"It just exploded. I'm like, 'Oh my God. Like I've got a million Twitter notifications,'" Droddy said. "I've never been that popular."

People had really taken a liking to Droddy. They had noticed him. And not because he'd had a bad day on the track. Most of America didn't notice the actual results at Hayward Field in front of 30,000 fans.

People had noticed Droddy because he didn't look like the other clean-cut, perfect runners with sponsors and elite training. He had his hat on backward and tinted sunglasses. He had that long dark hair and thick — fake-looking — mustache.

"I mean, it's kind of weird to me because it's just, kind of, I always look like that," he said. "I just put on the hat to keep the hair out of my eyes and I put on the sunglasses because the sun was out. It's like I wasn't trying to do anything to make an impression on anyone."

But Droddy started reading those messages that night as the phone blew up. And it brought him joy.

It didn't upset him that people didn't think he belonged there. He knew wholeheartedly he did. Droddy had earned his spot at those Olympic trials, qualifying in Portland just weeks before. Runners needed a time of 28:15 to be guaranteed a spot on the line. Droddy ran a 28:22 in Portland, fast enough to make the final list of 27 guys to fill out the field and compete in the trials.

"Hero" and "majestic," that's what people on Twitter were calling Droddy. He liked being dubbed "the “most American athlete to ever live.” Someone on Twitter demanded that bald eagles be cropped into Droddy's photo. Another said he must have lost his way while heading to a house party and landed on an Olympic track.

Droddy knew he looked different than the other guys. But he's looked that way for quite some time.

"I'm old school and I call him a hippie," said David Droddy, Noah's dad, who set records in cross-country as a freshman at Franklin College. "He just likes the way he looks. He looks good in long hair and the mustache."

As a teen at the International School of Indiana, when Droddy worked as a lifeguard and at Jockamo Upper Crust Pizza, he also was in a punk band, Where's The Cake. He's had long hair since then, though this is the longest it's been.

"You kind of get into, you know, this is where my power comes from so I'm going to keep it," Droddy said. "I usually have facial hair. The mustache is something I've been doing for races. I'll grow the beard out and cut it down into a mustache for the race. It's just like a mental thing."

Cartoonist Jason Walton created an illustration after Noah Droddy's fame at the Olympic 10K trials.(Photo: Provided by Roots Running Project)

Droddy sees all the attention as positive. A cartoonist even created an illustration that says "We Are All Droddy."

"At the end of the day, I don't really care if people think I crashed it. I earned my spot there," he said. "If I look a little bit different than some of the other runners, so be it. I hope people can look at me and they can say, 'You know? This is kind of a normal guy who trains really hard.’”

Normal guy who trains hard? That would be an understatement.

***

A year ago, Droddy had no idea he would be in the trials to qualify for the Olympics. Sure, he was a runner. But he trained in "a lazy way," he says.

Droddy wasn't a standout runner in high school; He made it to semistate his senior year. His fastest 5K time was 16:37.

"Which is a good time. It will sound fast to a lot of people but really in the scheme of Indiana high school running, it's not very good," Droddy said. "Guys are running 15-flat."

Needless to say, Droddy wasn't recruited to run in college. He landed at DePauw, a Division III program. The head coach wasn't even talking to him. The assistant coach called some, but mostly it was a graduate assistant talking to Droddy about running at the college.

"It's not a knock, but DePauw will take anybody," Droddy said.

That's the caliber of runner he was.

Still, Droddy started to hit his stride in college, named an All-American in cross-country his junior and senior years. He was standing out in a way he hadn't before, though, Droddy said, he was a nobody compared to Division I runners.

Which makes his story of the Olympic trials even more endearing.

Noah Droddy is just a normal 25-year-old guy, who can run like nobody's business.(Photo: Provided by Noah Droddy)

Less than a year ago, in November, Droddy packed up and moved from Indianapolis to Boulder, Colo., to train with Roots Running Project. It's a small, underfunded running group striving to become a nonprofit.

Its coach, Richey Hansen, though, is doing remarkable things.

Since Droddy landed with the group, he's knocked two minutes off his half-marathon time, about a minute off his 5K and a minute and half off his 10K — huge numbers in the running world.

Hansen said he was intrigued by Droddy and saw a lot of "untapped potential" in him. Still, nobody was more shocked than Hansen to watch Droddy at the Olympic trials.

"Just looking at what he had done on paper?" Hansen said. "He shouldn't have had the year he’s had so quickly."

Making it to the trials was tremendous. What happened that day? Not so much.

"My goal was to finish as high up as I possibly could. Again, didn't work out superwell," Droddy said. "I just had a bad day. It's just like you get out there — I think people can relate to this in other aspects of their life — you just get out there and you feel flat. Your heart and mind are telling your body to go, and your body is just not responding."

Droddy said he had a sore throat that day and, in the days that followed, a fever and a bad cough. He doesn't want to make excuses.

"Unfortunately for him it didn’t go great," Hansen said. "It takes times and experience to line up against those guys and race."

When Hansen saw the social media attention about Droddy not belonging, he agreed, but not from a looks standpoint.

"When I saw this guy crashed the trial, I took it as crashing the party," Hansen said. "And to a certain extent he did."

Droddy was the guy who didn't belong on the list if you look at his history of running. Yet, he progressed enough to be there, quickly.

"Noah is just such a unique soul," Hansen said. "He is a working-class runner."

***

Noah Droddy runs in the Men's 10000 Meter Final during the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on July 1, 2016 in Eugene, Oregon.(Photo: Getty Images)

Droddy works two jobs in Boulder, at a running store and the front desk of a gym. The economics of the sport don't allow the luxury of pro athlete living. He has a roommate. He will make about $5,000 to $10,000 this year running.

So he works about 30 hours a week and trains seven days a week, starting at 7 a.m. Then he comes home, eats, takes a nap and works.

The routine paid off in a short seven months in Boulder.

"The Olympic trials, that's our Super Bowl," Droddy said.

Now, the four-year cycle will start again, with the goal of another Olympic trial. In between, he will run races and compete all over.

People may recognize him this time around. He's made a name for himself. He belongs. He's accomplished.

And his mom, Sue, is thrilled. But not just because Droddy has hit the peak of a runner's dream. But because he doesn't act like it.